


Becoming Perfect

by talkswithwind



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Canon Lesbian Character, Coming Out, F/F, Gen, Lesbian Character, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 17:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8541634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkswithwind/pseuds/talkswithwind
Summary: Alex just had a hard talk with Maggie Sawyer and had to leave. Fled, actually. Now, it's time to finish that interrupted talk with Kara.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written after E2.05 and before E2.06 aired. Briefly speculative-canon, now non-canon.

For the thousandth time, Alex forcefully unclenched her jaw. Then faced Kara's door. _It was a long walk from the bar_ , she told herself, _that's why my heart won't settle._

She growled softly, clenching her jaw once again. _Right. Stop lying to yourself, Danvers._

Sawyer's knowing look had drained all the courage out of her faster that anything she'd faced before. Aliens. Training. College. Even boyfriends. Those lips moved, and the eye crinkle, and she fled.

It wasn't fear. Definitely not fear. It was something else. OK, maybe some fear.

_Damn it, Kara can probably hear my heart from in there. Just knock._

She knocked. And hated how tentative it sounded.

The door opened on Kara, delight on her face. “Alex! I'm sorry about Lena, I didn't know. Did I tell you she came to CatCo? I don't know _what_ she sees in me.”

Kara's familiar fluster settled Alex's stomach. A wry smile crossed her face. “You have friends, Kara. She knows that now.”

Her sister sighed, visibly deflating. “I know! And a Luthor! But she seems to be nice? That would be nice. For Clark. And me. Um, you look like something bad happened?”

“I was about to tell you something when...” Alex got out before Kara interrupted.

“Oh! Right!” she said, jumping in surprise. “Sit,” she said, pointing at the kitchen table and going to the fridge.

Alex sat. Kara brought a bottle of wine with two glasses. “That's your 'I'm thinking too hard' face,” she said as she sat, and pulled the cork out.

Stalling for time, Alex watched Kara pour. Not one to leave silences stand unchallenged, Kara said, “This is a new bottle I got at the grocery store. You know this doesn't do anything to me, but I like the taste! The guy doing the stocking...”

The Parable of the Wine-Section Stocker continued through half a glass. Which, since this was Kara talking, included a slosh on the table as she made an emphatic point, followed by apologies and paper-towels.

“Your evening went better than mine,” said Alex, feeling much better.

“What happened? Is it about what you wanted to tell me? I should shut up.”

The litany of perfect she had given Sawyer... was not what Kara needed to hear. Even if it had been interrupted by craven fleeing. Gathering herself, she said, “Remember Damian?”

Kara's expression went blank for a few moments, then she found it. “Oo! High-school! You two dated for a while. I was jealous because he was _pretty_ , and he didn't even look at me. He was in Judo club, which I couldn't join.”

“No,” interrupted Alex. “You were still dimpling door-knobs when you forgot yourself. Judo would _not_ have been a good idea.”

“You seemed to like each other. “

Alex shrugged as she took a sip of the wine. It was decent. “We did. But, he wanted to 'get serious' and I... didn't. With him.”

“Jerk,” said Kara with force.

Alex felt her lips press together. She had said she wanted to get serious too, but in the event changed her mind. “Only after I said no. Teenage boys,” she shrugged. “haven't learned how to lose gracefully yet.”

Kara grimaced, eyes narrowing. “Sex isn't winning, jerkface.”

That drew a chuckle out of Alex. “Then there was Patrick.”

“Mm!” said Kara, putting her glass down. “I remember that one. College! He came home twice. We though you two were serious, then it kind of... stopped. You never said what the fight was about? What was it about?”

“Oh, Kara,” she said, looking at a spot on the table. She felt more than saw Kara's face solidify into 'concerned sister'. “He wanted to 'get serious' too, but we were in college! So we had sex instead of 'getting serious'. And it...” _manifestly didn't work,_ “wasn't what I was hoping for. Then he kept pushing for it, since it _was_ what he was hoping for. And I kind of... pushed him away. He took it better than Damian did.”

Kara claimed her left hand. “Oh geez, I'm sorry. We thought there was a fight you didn't want to talk about.”

Alex grimaced again. “There kind of was, but I was _not_ telling mom that.”

“Yeaaaah,” said Kara. “She kind of... 'Oh, Kara'ed me when I told her about _my_ brief boyfriend in college.”

Alex's eyes shot up. “Boyfriend? How did I not hear about this?”

Kara wasn't making eye contact. “Well, it didn't _exactly_ last long, and I kind of jumped him. And then _it_ happened, and we kind of decided to pretend nothing had happened. Um.”

The silence stretched. Alex jumped in shock when she realized what she had just been told. “You figured out how?”

Kara's faced worked for a while before she said, “Kind of yeah. It took amazing amount of control and it was very nearly extremely bad, but I caught myself in time. It sort of scared him. A lot. That would have been _a lot worse_ than a dimpled doorknob.”

Alex barked a laugh at the image of what almost happened, and put a hand to her face. “That poor boy.”

“Yeah... so we said that it never happened. And it hasn't. So don't tell! But now I _know_ and forewarned is forearmed!”

“Good for you!”

“Maybe? I don't know! I haven't exactly had much luck lately. And neither have you. Why are we going over your old boyfriends?”

“You just said, 'forewarned is forearmed'. Patrick was my warning, but I couldn't see it. I thought it was just something between us that wasn't working. And then Javen...”

“Oo! Secret agent boyfriend! That accent, oh my God!”

Alex chuckled. “Yes, _and_ he threw me around the training room with the utmost of respect. Very dashing. He seemed like the perfect boyfriend, so I made him one.”

“With consent, of course,” said Kara, somewhat arch.

Alex's own lips worked. “Of course. I did give him _some_ choice in the matter. Not much of one, but enough.”

“But,” said Kara, who looked like she could smell where this was going.

Alex nodded and looked down. “But. I did all the right things. He did them back. And... it didn't work. _That_ was when I heard the warning Patrick gave me. Dating, dating wasn't something I had in me.

“And that was fine, some people aren't. So I focused on my training. I wanted to be top agent in the DEO!”

“Which you did,” said Kara, face still intent.

“I did. Then you decided to be Super Girl, and we worked together. Which has been great! We've done good things! Met people.”

“Like.”

Alex spared a moment to curse Kara's infant reporter's instincts. _Stop lying to yourself, Danvers._ “Detective Maggie Sawyer. Did you know that her girlfriend broke up with her today? Called her a psychopath. She's pretty broken up about it,” said Alex, not meeting Kara's eyes.

Kara blinked. “Detective Sawyer is _not_ a psychopath! She cares too much! That girl is _clearly_.... wait. Alex, wait! Are you saying... what are you saying?”

Alex steeled herself. Saying the words to _Kara_ should have been easier than Sawyer, but they still stuck in her throat. Kara kept peering at her, as if her X-ray vision could find the words she knew were lurking. She cleared her throat, but still couldn't meet Kara's eyes. “That I have been dating the wrong people. Kind of people.”

 _Women. I should have been dating women._ But those words were too scary to say.

Alex looked up in time to watch Kara's face shift in slow motion from intent-suspicion through realization, and on into full faced happiness. “Alex, that's amazing! How long have you known?”

Alex sighed. “Oh, about four hours. This afternoon, I didn't know. I suspected it might be true? But now, now I know.”

Kara did her excited-dance and hopped around the table to pull Alex into a hug.

“I'm so sorry it took you so long,” said Kara.

Alex snorted and hugged her sister back. “Hell yeah, me too. Took a few hard knocks, but now I'm forearmed.”

“Does Maggie know?” said Kara, pulling out of the hug.

The vivid image of Sawyer's knowing smile, and the _eye crinkle._ “Oh, I'm pretty sure she does, yeah,” she said, as her stomach flipped at the memory.

Kara peered at her over her glasses. “Are you OK?”

The tension grew too much. Alex stepped away from Kara and paced a fast circle; window, door, back to the chair, and locked her hands on the back of the chair to hold herself in place.

“No, I'm not. I'm a grown woman,” she said, with forced calm. “A grown woman who has her very first crush, and I don't know what to do. Well, I do know what to do, but doing it scares me.” _First, Maggie has to get over her ex enough to consider taking up with a recently not-straight woman who has to figure her own shit out._

Kara stepped over and started working on the knots in Alex's shoulders. Alex willed her muscles to relax; Kara had a hard time telling knots from muscles held in tension, and she would work _either_ out whether they liked it or not. The fingers on her shoulders slowed her brain down.

“You'll figure it out, Alex. You always do. Give her some time to get through her grief, and _give yourself time_ to work through things! It doesn't have to be done right this second.”

“I lied, Sawyer is not my first crush,” said Alex, eyes half lidded. “She's the first I've had and known what it was. But first goes to Kelsey.”

The fingers paused. “She was on your volleyball team?”

“That's her,” said Alex, as Kara's fingers got back to work. “We were best friends. Like, _the_ best. At least, if you asked me. When she started dating Scott, I felt jealous. But I only saw it as the way things were supposed to go; get a boyfriend, you spend less time with your other friends. I didn't quite catch the reason I didn't like him was because I wanted her all to myself.”

“I remember that,” said Kara, fingers moving up the neck. “It was before Damian, and you got all focused for a few weeks. Mom was worried.”

“She told me I could make new friends, and that Kelsey would be back.” _Kelsey was probably why Damien happened at all. Fuck._

Kara withdrew her hands. “You know, Mom will be fine with this. I think she would have been fine if you figured it out back in high-school.”

Alex sat up straight and worked her neck, earning a few pops and cracks. “Yeah, you're probably right. I keep kicking myself for not noticing. But then, why would I think of that? None of the girls were out in our school, and I needed someone to, kind of, point things out. How did this work on Krypton?”

Kara shrugged expansively. “I was a _little_ young to know much of that, but I _did_ know. My family had friends who were in same sex relationships. It was something people did, and I never really thought about it until I came to your schools and didn't see it. I though it was an Earth thing, until Dad gave me a _very_ direct talk one night. Let's... not talk about that.”

Kara turned and walked to the windows overlooking the night-lit city. “Earth, America, is just getting there now. In twenty years, girls like we were will have those examples I had on Krypton. I'm _really_ happy for you, Alex. Figuring that out about yourself? It makes you stronger.”

Alex stepped up to the window. “I've leveled up. Like you did, when you saved that airplane.”

“And like me, it'll take you a while to figure out how the world works again. You'll get there.”

Alex stared out over the city. “Yeah, I will.”

Sawyer's knowing smile and eye-crinkle. The stomach flop returned, but attenuated. Manageable. Alex focused her attention on that smile and the woman behind it.

_And I want to be perfect for you._


End file.
